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The service will offer Data Center as a Service (DCaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) capabilities worldwide. Open Compute server designs will be employed, according to the company's Web site, "because it provides our engineers with the flexibility to configure and optimize the hardware specifically for scale cloud deployments."

The open-source OpenStack Cloud components, IO pointed out, are "interoperable and designed to support standardized hardware implementations." The Open Compute Project was started in 2011 by Facebook engineers, and is intended to create the most efficient data centers through power and cooling cost reductions, flexible maintenance and an ability to easily scale.

'Avoids Lock-In'

The -oriented service will be deployed from the company's seven data centers worldwide or from a 's site, and its open reference architecture is engineered for high performance.

The Open Compute Summit currently taking place in San Jose, Calif., is the site of IO's announcement of its new service, launched in a keynote speech from CEO George Slessman. Slessman told news media that companies are "eager for a cloud solution that both addresses security and avoids lock-in to proprietary architecture." The service will first be offered in the IO data centers in Phoenix and in Edison, N.J.

There are already a lot of clouds out there for enterprises, but IO has hundreds of companies already using its facilities, so the thinking is that those companies would be receptive to buying cloud services from the same provider.

IO is known for its pre-fabricated data center modules, and, with the use of OpenStack and Open Compute servers, the company is taking a non-proprietary approach to the infrastructure. The company said it was expecting to conduct its own customization of the OpenStack open source framework, through its in-house research and development unit. Pricing has not been announced.

Reference Design

Fremont, Calif.-based Amax, which focuses on Open Compute designs, is partnering with IO for the servers and storage. Amax is showcasing its complete Open Compute solution at the Open Compute Summit, and it and IO will release the data center reference design, entitled "Redefining the Data Center: How IO used the Open Compute Platform to Create a Unique Cloud Solution."

Amax said its racks would be pre-loaded with OpenStack, so that applications can readily be added and run within days.

In a statement, Amax Director of Strategic Alliance Julia Shih said that the Open Compute Platform "is a real game changer, because it's not just the megawatt data centers like Facebook that can utilize OCP." Any company that "needs an efficient and nimble platform" can do so, she said.

OpenStack is an open-source cloud operating system that controls computing, storage and networking resources in a data center, and is managed through a dashboard. It is designed to be used on standard hardware and to accommodate a massively scalable cloud-based system.

The OS began in the summer of 2010, when hosting provider Rackspace announced it was releasing its code for cloud infrastructure, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said it would provide its open-source cloud computing project, Nebula, to the initiative. Nebula was developed by NASA in 2008 as a way of providing additional data centers for NASA scientists and engineers.